


Little Reasons

by Spectascopes



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Babybones (Undertale), Child Abuse, Found Family, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Major Illness, Medical Trauma, Past Violence, Recovery, Underswap Muffet (Undertale), Underswap Papyrus (Undertale), Underswap Sans (Undertale)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:07:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25008931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spectascopes/pseuds/Spectascopes
Summary: Something, or somebody, has been rifling through the Snowdin garbage bins. Muffet, the local dessert parlor hostess, decides to investigate.It's a pretty standard babybones story taking place in Underswap with Muffet as the main character.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 73





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ahaha you mean i should finish OTHER fanfics before starting new ones? unheard of
> 
> anyways, some headcanons are applied here, major one being that Underswap Sans is the older brother. There might be some weird swaps going on, forgive me, I've never really written a whole town of swap-ees. I was told to make the title something ""serious"". Comments appreciated!

Muffet was a spider of high standards. Everybody knew that- it was why she could continue to do business with a niche restaurant in such a small town. Her desserts were the best- that much was indisputable. And of course, Muffet took great pride in that. She kept her parlor spotless, treated her regular customers with utmost kindness, and did her very best to give back to the town that supported her so fully.

So when people started complaining about overturned garbage bins and broken-into garages and sheds, Muffet tried to stay on top of the news.

“It just doesn’t make any damn sense,” Bunaressa said gruffly. “Whatever’s out there has robbed nearly everybody in town- how could nobody have seen it?”

“We’ve seen the footprints,” Bunamy pointed out patiently. “Somebody is bound to catch it eventually.”

“I don’t want to catch it  _ eventually _ ,” Bunaressa barked. “We need to catch it  _ soon. _ It broke into the shed and ate our extra bag of carrots!” 

“I know, honey,” Bunamy said, trying to placate her. Muffet dished out some more greens for the guards before their duty- vegetables weren’t usually on the menu of a dessert parlor, but she made an exception for the exceptional amount of rabbits in town.

“Perhaps it's just hungry?” Muffet offered. “I’ll keep a look out- it's bound to wind up here at some point.”

“Thanks, Muffet,” Bunamy said as Bunaressa continued to bark and rave about the little thief.

The truth was, Muffet was already keeping an eye out. She bit her lip, mindful of her fangs, and went to the kitchen to start baking. Snowdin’s thief was good. The rabbits couldn’t pick up a trail, it only struck in the dead of night, it never left more than a few footprints that disappeared once they hit the treeline. If it had been Hotland she might have requested her spiders to go looking, but the poor darlings couldn’t survive in the snow. Aside from the Innkeeper, Muffet was the second most esteemed member of the Snowdin community. Nobody was asking her to solve the case, but she felt it was her duty to provide back. 

She was also very, very curious about the thief. Perhaps it was a robber? A dog? A Flowey with a faulty moral compass that had strayed too far from Waterfall? Whatever the case, she’d be happy to give it food! It only need show itself and stop being so good at hiding itself away.

She spent the day as usual, running her bakery and chatting with the customers. It was a slow Thursday, for the most part. She was serving a very well-kept bunny some mousse when she heard the door jingle and a familiar voice call out.

“Hey Muffy! You better have some good stuff cooking today,” Catty called. Muffet turned around immediately and saw the purple cat taking a seat in the nearest booth, waving happily to her. Muffet smiled- the Shopkeeper was always a treat to have.

Muffet made her way over at once and smiled at the cat.

“Catty! It’s only Thursday! What are you doing here?”

“I thought I’d drop in and get a little something extra- don’t you worry, I’ll be here tomorrow, too. I’m bringing Bratty with me,” she said with a wink.

“Oh, ahuhu… on a date?”

Catty grinned, her whiskers perking up at the action.

“You rascal!” Muffet said with a giggle. She looked around the parlor and saw that nobody was in an immediate need of assistance, so she took a seat in the booth next to her friend. “What can I get you?”

“Just your company, for now,” Catty said. She took her hat off and sat it down on the table. “I came by to tell you about last night.”

Muffet’s curiosity was piqued. “Oh? What happened last night?”

“Well, I know how much you’re invested in the food thief case, so I thought I’d come tell you. They broke into the shop last night,” Catty said with sudden seriousness.

“Oh my! The shop? Not the storage?”

“Nope, the shop- I went to unlock it this morning and the door was open. They only took a little, but it was enough for me to notice.”

Muffet leaned back, one of her six hands rubbing her chin. “Oh dear… they’re getting bolder. How could it possibly get into the shop?”

Catty smiled a little sheepishly. “Well, I think I forgot to lock it the night before. So I’m assuming they just kinda… walked in the front door.”

“Catty!”

“I know! I know, it's my fault, I’m going to report it to the guard as soon as I leave here. I just thought I’d fill you in so you’d know!”

“Well, thank you, but you really should be more careful,” Muffet said with a frown. 

“I know, I will be! I won’t forget- at least for another month,” she said, smiling.

Muffet rolled all five of her eyes. “You’re going to get formally robbed one of these days. What’d they take, though?”

“A few crabapples I had laying around and a cinnamon bunny, I think. Nothing too valuable- if anything I feel bad for the thing. All it’s taking is food, it’s probably hungry and scared.”

Muffet frowned. 

Over the next few days, Muffet began to leave food out behind her restaurant. She prepared simple things and left them by the bins, and every night it was taken. Weeks went by- one by one, day by day. Muffet’s bins were ransacked every night, but never in a haphazard way- they were even pushed back up when the thief was done, some food scraps gone, footsteps in the snow, but no trace of the villain at large. 

Eventually, though she loathed to lose her beauty sleep, she was determined to take matters into her own hands. The snowdin buns just weren’t getting the job done. So she sat up- one particularly cold night, she sat, wrapped in a blanket and hiding in the corner of the small back porch of the parlor.

It came, eventually. Muffet froze as she heard movement coming from the trees, a little nervous to see what would emerge… only to balk as a small, shivering skeleton child stepped hesitantly into the open. 

Muffet nearly stood, nearly called out for them to hurry over, but… this was the thief, was it not? She watched as they looked around carefully before hurrying over and grabbing the doggy bag of food from beside the bins. They had glowing blue eyelights and couldn’t be older than twelve or so, though Muffet couldn’t know for certain, since she’d never really seen a skeleton before. 

Muffet stood slowly as they got on their tiptoes and reached into one of the cans, carefully removing the lid first. 

“Hello? Darling?” Muffet called. The little thief froze and looked back at her, eyes wild, before grabbing the doggy bag tighter and bolting like lightning into the treeline.

“Wait-!” Muffet called, but they were gone. 

Muffet reported her findings to the Bunny guard the next day. A search party went out into the trees searching for the child, but after many hours in the cold and snow, it came back empty pawed. 

Muffet continued to leave her food out, but it was no longer being taken. Every night she made something, a dessert, a vegetable stew, anything she could think of, but now that she’d been spotted, the thief didn’t dare show themself again. Her bins remained untouched.

Weeks went by. Muffet stayed out at least one night of the week to look for the thief, but it never showed. Soon, a month passed. She became increasingly worried and nervous about the child- they were okay, right? They couldn’t have dusted… but yet her mind wandered in the time she paused between orders.

Who was the thief? Why would a little skeleton be too frightened to come ask for food?


	2. Chapter 2

Muffet was sitting in the cold. She’d gotten used to it, after doing it for so long. Two months had gone by, enough for her hope to begin to dwindle. The town rabbits had found nothing, the footprints leading to nowhere, not a scent. The trash was beginning to go untouched all throughout town. Even the Hotland dogs were called in to investigate, but they, like the rabbits, had found nothing. 

The spider monster rubbed one set of arms with the other two. Maybe she should give up… whatever the skeleton was up to, it certainly wasn’t getting food from Snowdin anymore. 

She got up to go back inside, to maybe get some sleep for the night… when she heard the bushes rattle. She perked up at once, standing with her blanket wrapped around her like a shawl. 

“Hello?” she called.

There was nothing. Then, after many seconds, the child emerged from the brush, looking around nervously. Their eyes met Muffet’s for a moment before they looked away, but slowly, very very slowly, they made their way to the porch steps.

Muffet gently went down to her knees to be closer, at a loss for words. Up close, illuminated by the dim porch light, she could see the child. See how awful they looked- the dark bags under their eyes, the fading magic in their eyelights, the cracks and chips in their bones. They refused to look at her.

“Sweetie… darling, why are you out here in the cold?”

“P...please help us,” they croaked. Their voice was young and high but damaged. They lifted the lights in the sockets for a moment before the tears began to fall and they sniffled.

“Oh, oh my…” Muffet breathed. She took a moment to compose herself as the child cried and wiped at their sockets and sobbed. “Sweetie, who is ‘us’?”

“M-My brother- my little brother, he’s… he’s sick. He won’t wake up, he w…” they broke off to sob and hold themself tight. “Please- please, he’s… he’s real sick…”

“Of course- of course, sweetie, I’ll help however I can. Is he with you?”

The skeleton shook their head. They didn’t respond for a while.

“Honey, I want to help you,” Muffet said gently. She wrapped her blanket tighter around herself, soul chilled by the sight before her. 

“You have to- you… you gotta promise y-you won’t- hurt us,” They cried. “Please don’t- don’t hurt us, miss…”

“Oh goodness, no, darling! I won’t hurt you! I’m here to help- why do you think I’ve left you food?”

That seemed to satisfy the child. He wiped at his sockets and sniffed for a moment before he seemed to steal himself and nod. He turned tail and set off back into the trees.

Muffet followed without a moment’s hesitation.

The trek through the woods was long. By the time the kid reached a small crack in the stone wall, Muffet’s boots were soaked and her blanket ripped from being drug through the underbrush. 

The child disappeared into the rocky crag for a moment before reappearing, staggering, an even younger skeleton clutched tightly to their chest. This one looked to be four or five. They hung limply in the first child’s arms.

“We need to get them to a healer right away,” Muffet said, reaching out to take the poor thing from the child’s arms. 

They let her. They had a lost, confused look about them, somewhat numb, as though they couldn’t process what was happening. The weight that was deposited into Muffet’s arms was far too light.

They trekked back. The child began to drag behind as Muffet led the way, following their tracks through the dark forest. She turned back and frowned, knowing she couldn’t carry both of them, but the little thing seemed determined to press on. The skeleton in her arms, however…

They eventually arrived to town, and after that, the Inn. Bratty, the innkeeper, was long closed by that point in the night, but Muffet walked to the door anyhow and was about to give it a good thwacking. She turned to say something to the older child, but they were hiding around the corner of the building, shaking like a leaf.

“Oh, honey, it’s alright- the Innkeeper is a healer. She can heal your brother.”

“I… what if… can’t you?” the little one stuttered. They seemed entirely overwhelmed and upset, little cyan eyelights growing just faintly brighter with fear. “I w… I wanna go back to the nice building. Wh-where there’s food.”

Muffet thought about debating with the child, but they seemed so scared, she couldn’t bring herself to dismiss his worries. 

“Okay. But if I can’t heal him, we have to bring him back here. Is that a compromise?”

The child nodded. Muffet shifted the one in her arms to be better held, wrapping the blanket around him as much as possible. 

They returned to the parlor, Muffet’s arms growing weaker and her body started to really feel the chill of Snowdin’s air. She was so happy when she finally opened the back door and walked inside to feel the heat of her small apartment home.

She turned. The skeleton was standing at the doorway. Their breaths came in tight gasps as they looked inside.

“It’s okay, darling, it’s safe- I promise. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Her words didn’t seem to appease the child in the slightest, but they took a shuddering breath and hesitantly stepped inside, their cloth-covered feet still rife with snow. They were so tiny- barely half of Muffet’s height and, though a skeleton, so skinny. 

Muffet ushered them in to the best of her abilities, using an extra set of arms to clear the couch in the living room of pillows while another deposited the unconscious skeleton child onto it.

She sat on her knees beside the soft surface. She looked at the littler one, now properly in the light, and shuddered.

He was just as much a mess as the other was. Little wounds all over, skinny, frail, breaths coming shallowly and soul barely glowing. She couldn’t see everything through the tattered clothes he wore, but what was visible was enough. She used her magic and checked the poor thing.

She sucked in a breath and blinked. His HOPE was nearly gone. Of the four points he had, he was below one. She’d never seen a monster with this small amount of HP! She swallowed, hard, and turned to his brother, who was watching anxiously from beside her.

She checked him, too. His HP was hardly better- eleven points, two of which were intact. She nearly cried thinking of what hardships these two had gone through.

She raised two sets of hands, one sat on her knees to steady herself, and gathered up her magic to heal the skeleton on the couch.

Two tiny hands grabbed at her wrists. “W-wait- don’t-”

Muffet stopped, faltering at the fear in the child’s voice.

“What’s wrong?”

“He… you… you can’t hurt him. He’s s-sick, he’ll… he won’t…”

“I wouldn’t dream of hurting him, darling, but I need to try and heal him before his HOPE depletes anymore.”

The child was a crying mess, thick tears rolling down their face, but they eventually took their shaking hands from her wrists and allowed her to continue.

Muffet did. She called upon her magic again, willing all her compassion and power into the skeleton child before her. She pressed one hand to his forehead and one to his chest, the other two steadying the skeleton as she took a deep breath and tried healing him.

What was immediately apparent was that his wounds ran deeper than the surface. He was ill- very, very ill. Muffet pursed her lips and pushed harder, giving much-needed energy to his soul and willing his bones to accept her. There was resistance, maybe subconsciously, and she frowned.

“Oh dear…”

“What’s wrong?” the bigger child asked, immediately going to grab her wrists again.

“He’s… fighting me. He’s not accepting my magic.”

That made the little thief sob. They reached out and put a hand on their brother’s head.

Muffet continued with the healing process. She looked over and saw the skeleton, eyes closed, a small portion of magic on their fingertips as they, too, attempted to heal their little brother.

Whatever they did worked. Muffet felt her magic be absorbed and sighed in relief. The little soul she was attempting to heal glowed just a bit brighter, and the breaths came more easily. He didn’t wake, but after she’d poured as much energy as she dared into the little thing, she pulled away. Though still rough, he looked better than when they’d started. 

The first child sniffled and leaned over, touching their forehead to his. They were quick to pass out, the use of their magic too much. 

Muffet checked them both again to make sure they weren’t on the doorsteps of death before arranging them both on her purple couch and tucking them in with the throw laying behind it. 

She stood. She felt a little faint herself from expending so much of her magic. She pulled out her phone and made a few calls.


End file.
